The Director's Guild of America has announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011.

Three very expected names that made the cut were Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist"), Martin Scorsese ("Hugo") and Alexander Payne ("The Descendants"). They were joined by Woody Allen ("Midnight in Paris"), who seemed like a good bet for a nomination, but the other nominee was not expected at all. David Fincher, who got his third DGA nomination for "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo."

Fincher got the nod over the likes of Terrence Malick ("The Tree of Life"), Bennett Miller ("Moneyball"), Tate Taylor ("The Help") and - most notably - Steven Speilberg, who is all of a sudden a dark, uh, horse for "War Horse."

The award has traditionally been one of the industry’s most accurate barometers for who will win the Best Director Academy Award. Only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the Feature Film winner not gone on to win the corresponding Academy Award:

1968: Anthony Harvey won the DGA Award for The Lion in Winter while Carol Reed took home the Oscar for Oliver!

1972: Francis Ford Coppola received the DGA’s nod for The Godfather while the Academy selected Bob Fosse for Cabaret.

1985: Steven Spielberg received his first DGA Award for The Color Purple while the Oscar went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa.

1995: Ron Howard was chosen by the DGA for his direction of Apollo 13 while Academy voters selected Mel Gibson for Braveheart.

2000: Ang Lee won the DGA Award for his direction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while Steven Soderbergh won the Academy Award for Traffic.

2002: Rob Marshall won the DGA Award for Chicago while Roman Polanski received the Academy Award for The Pianist.

This year's winner will be named at the 64th Annual DGA Awards Dinner on Saturday, January 28, 2012, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland. The nominees are (in alphabetical order, with statistics provided by the DGA):

This is Mr. Allen’s fifth DGA Feature Film Award nomination. He won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for Annie Hall (1977), and was previously nominated in that category for Manhattan (1979), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Mr. Allen was honored with the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

DAVID FINCHER
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
(Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)

This is Mr. Fincher’s third DGA Feature Film Award nomination. He was previously nominated in this category last year for The Social Network and for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008. He previously won the DGA Commercial Award for Speed Chain (Nike), Gamebreakers (Nikegridiron.com), and Beauty for Sale (Xelibri Phones) in 2003 and was nominated in that category again in 2008.

This is Mr. Scorsese’s ninth DGA Award nomination. He won the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film in 2006 for The Departed, and was previously nominated in that category for Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002) and The Aviator (2004). Mr. Scorsese also won the DGA Award last year for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Television for Boardwalk Empire. In 1999, Mr. Scorsese was presented with the Filmmaker Award at the inaugural DGA Honors Gala, and he was honored with the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.